


Home

by osunism



Series: Lightning In A Bottle [10]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-15
Updated: 2015-02-15
Packaged: 2018-03-10 13:40:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3292385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/osunism/pseuds/osunism
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is easier to say it when you actually feel it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home

The days at Skyhold always dawned clear and bright.

But no clearer and brighter did they dawn than in the Inquisitor’s luxurious quarters. Through the stained-glass Orlesian windows, unforgiving sunlight crowned the mountain peaks and cast shafts of light directly into Hadiza’s face.

Her only response to what many Andrastians considered a glorious part of the day was an undignified groan and a clumsy toss of one of her pillows over her head.

She was, however, awake with no chance of going back to sleep. With another undignified groan, Hadiza managed to ooze out of bed, keeping her back to the dawn as she prepared for her morning ablutions and another unnecessarily long day in the War Room.

By the time she’d made her way down to the main hall, Skyhold was bustling with activity. Construction was well underway to finish repairing and redecorating the east wing, and breakfast had been laid out at her request. If there was one thing Josephine was good at, it was making sure the Inquisition did not dine on subpar food for any meal. She spared no expense for such niceties and despite her rough, adventuring lifestyle, Hadiza was still a gentlebred noblewoman at heart. She silently thanked the Maker that Josephine understood such nuances and the difference they could mean between a happy crew and a grouchy, irritable one.

As she sipped her Orlesian coffee she took a tally in her head for the million and one things she knew had to be done today, scratching at a piece of parchment with her quill as she answered greetings of “Your Worship” and “Inquisitor” with a nod of her head and a sound of acknowledgement.

Ah. The mission on the Storm Coast concerning Red Templars needed to be seen to today. Leliana’s scouts had reported seeing them near the reaches of Daerwin’s Mouth. Hadiza sighed. The Storm Coast was her least favorite region in Thedas it seemed like, second only to the Fallow Mire. She was  **still** scrubbing the muck out of her other breeches from that adventure.

After breakfast, she called her advisors to the War Room to make preparations and dole out missions.

Cullen greeted her warmly—as warmly as he could, anyway—with a nod and smile and after the initial chatter was out of the way, Hadiza got down to business.

Business, as it turned out, was all over the map of Thedas today. Hadiza pinched the bridge of her nose, a sign of an oncoming migraine.

"Corypheus doesn’t sit still for shit, does he?" She ground out during a discussion of which course of action to take regarding a Venatori outpost that had been discovered in the Western Approach.

Her advisors were startled by the sudden use of colorful language but Hadiza didn’t seem to care at this point, sighing and rubbing her hands on her face.

"Alright, alright," She said finally, staring hard at the region of desert on the map marked by a pyramid piece crowned with a crow—Leliana’s symbol. "Leliana, how many people can you have out there to take them out before they realize we’re onto them?"

"Inquisitor, do you think it wise?" Cullen interjected before Leliana could answer. "My men could be there and clear them out with minimal effort and minimal losses. We can’t be sure how many numbers they have within their enclave."

Hadiza nodded. “Exactly why we must do this quickly and quietly. We don’t want to alert the Venatori that our reach is long and our arm strong. What we want to do is destroy them before they can figure out how or why they were discovered. They know we’re in the Western Approach already. They don’t know that we know they’re there. Leliana, send a team in to clear them out and salvage whatever you can. I want to know what they’re up to out there in that neverending wasteland.”

Leliana inclined her head gently, setting a piece on the map. “Let’s see what we have,” She murmured.

Hadiza sighed, glad to be rid of that headache. Her eyes scoured the map which, before she rose to power she had no idea how to read. Cullen had familiarized her with the maps of Thedas, and she found him to be a very patient teacher, for which she was thankful. Now, she turned her eyes to the pieces dotting Ferelden.

"Red Templars in the Marches, Commander?" Hadiza asked looking over the report Cullen handed her. In the War Room, it was always titles and formalities.

"We’ve scouted some activity but nothing so serious as the one you go to face. Shall I send in my men to deal with it?"

Hadiza smiled. “Do what you do best, Commander. I’ll read all about it when I return. Ambassador, how are we on that riot that broke out over my…sentencing of that evil mage?” She didn’t even want to say his name, the loathsome creature. He had been loyal to Corypheus to the end. He deserved no better than what she’d done to him.

Josephine hesitated. Hadiza wasn’t looking at her, but tracing a path on the map, likely the one she planned to take to the Storm Coast.

"So far there has not been much fighting. However, many of the mages here in Skyhold are…concerned." Hadiza’s silver eyes snapped up to meet Josephine’s gaze. Great. Had she inadvertently pointed a knife at her back with that sentencing?

"Concerned?"

"Y…yes…it seems your decision to sentence the mage to become Tranquil was viewed as very…extreme by a lot of mages. Given the nature of the rebellion, they saw your support of the mages as disingenuous." Hadiza rolled her eyes to look at the ceiling.

"Right. Because Tranquility is the worst thing you can do to a mage. It’s like a beheading only you’re still alive. I know. I’ve heard the stories." She met their gazes.

"What do they want from me? There’s a hole in the sky with every manner of reason people fear mages—us—falling out of it but I make one evil mage pay for his heinous crimes and suddenly I’m—you know what? Tell them I stand by decision. Had I not done it, it’d be like turning a viper loose at our backs and not expecting to feel its bite. I’m a mage too and I’ll tell you this: there is neither metal nor stone that can hold me when my enemy is distracted by war."

That seem to settle the matter as none of her advisors had an adequate rebuttal.

"Consider it done, Inquisitor." Josephine replied with unfaltering graciousness. Hadiza’s brows rose.

"Is that all? Alright then, to work. Council’s adjourned. I shall be back in two weeks’ time at best, provided I don’t run into anything more willing to kill me than I am to live on the way." As her advisors left the room, Cullen lingered behind. Neither Hadiza nor the former Templar caught the knowing looks exchanged by Leliana and Josephine as the door shut behind them, leaving only the Inquisitor and the Commander alone in the vast room.

"Two weeks?" He asked her. Hadiza shrugged. It had been an estimate, nothing more, but she did note the worry that creased his brow.

"I can offer no more than that, Cullen. If Leliana’s intelligence is sound—and it almost always is—then what I face is no more dangerous than the usual. It’s not as if I’m facing down Corypheus’ archdemon, am I?"

Cullen shuddered to think on it, glancing at her from across the table, the entirety of Thedas between them.

"Hadiza…" He murmured her name as both prayer and admonition at her candid outlook which he perceived as her being careless with her own life.

"Cullen, I’m the only one with the power to close these rifts. I cannot sit here in Skyhold and send others to die if I am unwilling to do so myself. I simply will not." Cullen rounded the table to close the distance between them.

"I would never ask you to…" He trailed off because he was lying. "…I just wish that it were someone else, is all. Anyone else. I’m sorry. It’s selfish of me."

Hadiza crossed her arms. “Yes. It is. Cullen, I— _no one_ —asked for this. If Corypheus was right about one thing, it’s that I was a mistake. I was at the wrong place at the right time. The truth of the matter is…it  _could_  have been anyone else. But it was me. And now I must do what needs to be done to see this mistake corrected. You were a Templar not too long ago, you understand the importance of dedication.”

Cullen placed his hands on her shoulders leaning in to press his forehead to hers.

"I understand more than you know, and that’s what makes this worse. You leave this room everyday and march out into a world rife with chaos. Even with Iron Bull and the others watching your back, I still worry."

Hadiza laughed.

"A Templar worrying for a Mage, who would have thought the day would come?"

Cullen laughed gently, giving her that crooked smile, marred only by the tiny scar on his lip, the story behind which she had yet to coax out of him. She pressed a kiss to his mouth softly.

"Listen to me, Commander," She said softly, "I survived an archdemon breathing fire in my face and knocking me all over the Frostbacks. I also survived a dragon in the Hinterlands that decided I would taste better roasted. A few Red Templars are of little consequence." His arms came around her waist, pulling her to him tightly where he could bury his face in the curve of her neck and breath deep the scent of jasmine and honey from her Orlesian-imported bath soap.

"Just come home, Inquisitor." He murmured against her lips. It was the first time either of them acknowledged it, but there it was, a word neither had sought in this place but forged nonetheless. Skyhold. Home.

"I promise." She whispered back.


End file.
